Blackpaint 529 – Dick, Ted, BS and the Angel

I’ve broken my laptop in fit of righteous anger – Outlook was acting up. Writing this on a Kindle Fire and I don’t know how to upload pics from emails. Normal blogging may resume on Tuesday when I get the laptop back I hope…

Philip K Dick, BS Johnson, Ted Hughes

What do these three have in common? Answer: they all had visions (in Dick’s case, multiple ones). PKD saw the sky open up and an “evil deity” like a machine with slotted eyes scan the earth, and Dick, below.

Johnson visited Kilpeck church in Herefordshire and saw the Sheela-Na-Gig,a female gargoyle which sits on the coping pulling open her vulva with both hands. Driving back to Wales, he picked up a girl hitchhiker. When he dropped her, she sat in the road and turned into the Sheela (don’t know about the vulva bit-Jonathan Coe doesn’t elaborate in his Johnson bio “Like a Fiery Elephant”).

Hughes. in the poem “Meeting”, describes how he saw a goat on a mountain ledge, and looking into the animal’s eyes, had a vision of a giant hand descending from the heavens, scooping him up to a giant eye and examining him. Maybe he was being metaphorical; he was a dabbler in occult things, however, ouija boards and the like. ..